Music, Video and Style

Genre

A genre is a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by distinctive style, form or content.  We have different types of music videos to add variety, so all videos arent the same.

Animation/Homage

Animation as a genre is described as the use of of images/animations instead of actions  to illustrate the lyrics and meaning of the song.  However a homage is a acknowledgement of something from the past, normally well known or famous things. In the 8 bit world video these two actually link up, the video uses animations to illustrate the meaning of the video, which is about everyday life and its complications. It links with homage because the video itsself is directly linking to popular arcade games from the past which we see throughout the video. We see the likes of 'Mario', 'Space invaders' and 'Pacman'. So its clear its giving a homage to all famous games from the past by using animations.

Narrative/Performance

The narrative genre is best described as just telling a story, they normally have a certain message also behind the video, a hidden meaning also. Also most narrative music video's will also have an extended version for it, this is to help develop a plot or character. An example of narrative music video. This video is about a couple that go through all the stages of a relationship, the hi's, lows and finally the breakdown of one. However adds different irregular elements into it also such as domestic violence, which you get the sense is telling her own story with the recent accusions of violence that Rihanna's boyfriend inflicted onto her. It also links into the performance genre of music video's. We see rihanna actually performing and singing this song during little snippets of the video.

As Live

The 'As live' genre of music is songs that are sang 'as live' usually in a concert venue. A way to to recognise and 'As live' music video is they are normally infront of a live audience from past performances in big Concert venue's. Sometimes they will be singing in sync with the music, however sometimes it may just show different snippets of concerts and the music playing over the top of the video. Chasing status- Hypest hype is performed live infront of a big audience with them and tempa T on stage, this is identified as a 'as live' music video because all it shows is snippets from when they have performed the song live.



Pastiche/Parody

A pastiche music video in simples terms is an imitation of another media product, the message will normally be promoted in a tongue in cheek way. This means it will be quite silly and funny but not directly mocking it. However a parody music video directly sets out to mock another media product; its soul aim is to make fun of an original piece of work through the subject matter, the author or the style. They are quite similar styles however they are not to be confused with each other there is a clear line between each of them. In the Foo fighters video 'walk' it imitates the film 'falling down' with michael dougles, we see the fun side to the video when it changes all the bumper stickers from serious things we see in the film to humourous ones such as "we love you justin bieber". This is a prime example of how they make it tongue in cheek without directly mocking the other media product. Also with a pastiche music video which is similar to the parody genre, without the other media product the video would never make sense. They are based around that certain product. On the other hand an example of a parody music video is  Weird al' yankovic's "just eat it" music video. Here we can clearly see him mocking the Michael Jackson song "Beat it". Always with parody style music video's they will change the lyrics of the song into quite funny or mocking lyrics to turn it into a funny video and song. An allusion is simply a reference to something, for example in the foo fighters song it alludes the Micahel Dougless film "Falling down"by basically copying scenes from this.

Influence of commercials

Influence on commercial is the style of genre that use of advertising strategies to communicate a certain message. A way to indentify a influence of Commercials music video you would see things that the media and commercials use to make people buy and do things. For example in Kanye west's "Gold digger" we see the advertising strategies of magazines. It shows how magazines use provocative images to make people buy magazines, it shows attractive women in certain poses on the front cover of magazines. Another example of this genre is the black eyed pea's song "where is the love, in this video is shows how people use media products to get serious messages across the the world such as tv, radio and public landmarks.

Abstract

An abstract music video Is something that the audience would find hard to believe happening in the real world, things that don't happen in everyday life or sometimes don't ever happen Effects can be added to create a ‘dream like’ meaning. The main way of identifying an abstract music video is simply just to look for things that are out of the ordinary being the continuos theme of the video. For example in the Radiohead song 'Street spirit', we see very unusual things throughout the video. One of which being a man jumping backwards of a caravan, this has no meaning at all alongside other things. They could be doing this so the audience can interpret it any way they like, but really it has no meaning. By having no clouds or space in the background it creates a dream like feeling to the video, creating this abstract feel to it.






Interpretive 

An interpretive music video is very simple, it is just a visual interpretation of the lyrics. Which means they it will show you what the lyrics are actually saying. We can see this in the lonely island song "im on a boat". Which is quite self explanatory, during the song they sing "im on a boat" at this time the visual side is showing the lonely island and T-pain on the boat. This style is normally used to create a humour to the video because it is so obvious, however sometimes they can be serious representations of the lyrics. The lyric interpration is just using visuals to enhance the narrative, an example of this is when Rihanna sings "just gonna stand there and watch me burn" and in the background is a house on fire, this just enhances that line and makes it stand out. Also they have links to other artists in the Lonely island song, it shows T-pain during the video which is linking him and promoting. However there are other ways simply by mentioning the name of an artist is linking an artist. 

Impressionist 

An impressionist style music video is an artists take of another style, genre or theme. So it really does come down to the artists way of thinking, which makes them quite difficult to spot. However the way they can be identified is that they will be solely be focusing around one main thing, which they will normally be doing in tongue and cheek. This allows the artist to get a message across about the certain genre, style or theme. We can see this in the Beastie boys song "sabotage" this music video has taken on the theme of 1970's detective work and their take on this. We know this because it shows the 1970's style cops driving round recklessly and stupidly throughout the whole video, which is the Beastie boys take on what it was like being a cop during that era. It also can seen as a homage to 1970's set films such as hawaii 5-0 and Starsky and hutch.The video extends the songs meaning. For example in the beastie boys video we can see the use of text to extend the meaning of the song. We know the song is called sabotage but they use text to extend this.

Cutting to the beat/ Lighting  

During a song there will be a certain beat that is kept throughout the song, or it may change slightly to be faster or slower. In most music videos the scene will be cut to the beat of the drum/guitar etc. This is done to make it more effective when they change the shot, angle or even scene. A prime example of this is the Tinie Tempa video of "pass out". On the beat of the drum the shot will change to something else or a different angle. We can also see in this video a type of lighting, the Low key lighting,this is used to make a more moody or serious type  of video/atmosphere. There will be more shadows and darker sets.

Effects

Effects are used in music videos to add to the narrative. Used mostly in major record labels tend to use them because they can afford, however indie or self promoted artists most the time cant actually afford to do these sorts of effects or create a certain effect. In the Dr Dre “I need a doctor” where he writes of his Ferrari to add a action sense to the video, adding narrative to the video. It is also used to create a certain seriouness about the video and give the effect of a movie style video.

Miming and lip syncing

Miming and lip syncing are when the music will be played over the actual artist or people and they make it out as if their singing it. Almost every music video uses miming, some videos such as “Rockstar” by Nickleback, they just use random people and they mime the words to the song. They do this because if they were to do the video live on some occasions it would take a lot longer time getting it correct, when they can just record it in a studio where the sound is a lot better and the effects are easier to add.

Camera, shots, angles and movements

Close up- To capture the emotion of artist or characters in the video.

Establishing shot / Tracking

They are used to establish and set a scene,for example in the coldplay song they have an establishing shot of the city at the very beginning of the video, this is where the rest of the video takes place. Also at 0:48 in the video Chris martin runs towards the camera and the camera moves backwards with him tracking him as he walks.

Green Screen
The green screen is used to layer to things together, they use a green screen behind the person/object and project an image behind this. Weather often use this, by projecting the weather table behind the presenter. Chroma key is used to do this, also in the lil wayne video theyuse green screen by projecting the purple locker room behind lil wayne and nicki minaj.